Teaching-visionary Leadership - Part 5

Part 5- The entrepreneurial teacher

V R JAYAPRASAD

Abstract

The 21st-century skills include problem-solving, creativity, innovation, etc., adhering to a wide definition of entrepreneurial skill. By motivating the children to grow with accepting challenges and developing problem-solving capacities through live projects, experiential learning, and etc. teachers can help them find the creativity, initiative, and courage in themselves and are motivating students to overcome the external and internal barriers of life. Within the framework of teaching-learning, a dynamic and unpredictable environment appears as a possible incentive for students’ development for sustainability. The idea of infusing entrepreneurship in education has spurred much for economic growth and job creation. This article introduces the need for cultivating entrepreneurial skills among the learners from the primary classes and helps the teachers integrating these in teaching various subjects in the classroom.

Introduction

High youth unemployment is the challenge facing developing economies in the world. Making students more creative, proactive, and innovative, than ever before, is the responsibility of the 21st-century education system and increased societal rebuilding. No one is born without talent; every student should possess the insight to become their own boss. Just like the water diviners identify the presence of groundwater, the teachers and parents identify the potential of the children. Any system that helps the students to visualize their ideas into action requires active methods of engaging students to release their creativity and innovation.

In the present digital economy, entrepreneurship skill can be considered as a life skill rather than an economic activity. N-Gen seems to be capable of taking risks and exploiting new ways of doing things. The challenges before the 21st-century teachers and parents are making the environment for students to achieve a performance orientation, creativity, taking the initiative, risk-taking, perseverance, leadership, communication, problem-solving, collaboration, etc. preferably spending time for the examination. It is not about the covering of the syllabus but allows the students to reflect both in and on what they learned.

The economic review of 2019 says that only 3.80% of the population in India works in the public sector. Put simply, it describes the phenomenon of increasing demand for entrepreneurial skills, making use of the development of the Indian economy. Increased societal rebuilding from the corona pandemic resilience a myriad of effects has been stated to rebuild significant school engagement and improved curriculum.

Entrepreneurial skill

Entrepreneurial skill can be defined as the skills required for starting your own business by taking the risk of bringing together the factors of production to address a cause and making a profit out of it at the same time.

The OECD has identified three main groups of skills required by entrepreneurs:*

1. Technical-communication, environment monitoring, problem-solving, technology implementation and use, interpersonal, organizational skills.

2. Business management-planning and goal setting, decision making, human resources management, marketing, finance, accounting, customer relations, quality control, negotiation, business launch, growth management, compliance with regulations skills.

3. Personal entrepreneurial-self-control and discipline, risk management, innovation, persistence, leadership, change management, network building, and strategic thinking.

It is important for the educators to understand that building Entrepreneurship Skills in, students should be on the top of the teaching in their mind to make the student's successful professionals and entrepreneurs tomorrow.

Teacher entrepreneur

Evidence from early schooling still states that the teachers are the most influencing factor of students. That means a passionate teacher is inspirational, open-minded, and confident, flexible, and responsible who always listen well, and action-oriented. Teachers can play an important role in making the class more interesting through real-life experience. The open innovation approach that involves purposively managing knowledge to empower the learners confronts challenging experience.

The teacher always seeks to close the gap between education and economy and include real-life experience for activating students to release their creativity and innovation. Making use of externally generated ideas and technologies in their subject teaching and allowing students in using their ideas are necessary for challenging the ever-changing tomorrow’s job market. There is a need to develop learning outcomes related to entrepreneurship and related assessment method. These should be designed to help teachers progress in the acquisition of entrepreneurial knowledge, skills, and attitudes.

Teachers and schools will not be able to realize their ambitions without cooperation and partnerships with colleagues, businesses, and other stakeholders. Entrepreneurial skills can be taught across all subjects as well as a separate subject.

Entrepreneurial skill in language teaching

The challenges of the 4th Industrial Age have again created a fundamental change in the global economy, which is starting a new chapter in language learning.  Global cooperation and collaboration and the use of digital technology now impact significantly upon every aspect of life and it changed the place and demand for human labour. Starting from the mother tongue and growing to international languages is the system adopted in all developing countries looking for nation-building. 

Class projects, making a class magazine, article writing, role play, scriptwriting, debating, discussion, correspondence with students outside the country, blogging, etc. are some of the tools teachers can use for increasing language skills. Technology skills and thinking skills are the areas teachers take care of as an add-on to LSRW. A minimum level of listening, speaking, reading, and writing must be fulfilled in the lower classes before giving promotion to higher classes. Thinking and technology skills must be included in language for finding more ideas and express these through electronic social media. 

For example, students in a drama class are assigned a project to analyze the characters in a play to learn about character development; then the students use Movie Maker to create their own one-act play demonstrating character development. Apply their knowledge of their character analysis to create and develop their own characters; this step requires further interpretation and analysis and use of technology.  

Entrepreneurial skill in Math class

A common issue among math classes is that there are not enough real-world connections in the classes. Many students tend to complain “What are we ever going to use this for?” In general, the term numerical skill can be used to describe two different, but related, areas of ability; the ability to use basic math skills and interpret data in daily life and work; and the ability to engage in mathematical discussion and knowledge building at a higher level.

The teacher, when pitching ideas should be able to use key numbers of the market process in their head like a simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in order to be able to present market share and potential earning. The students need to write the proposal, manage the project, and get paid, the actual entrepreneurial activity.

Apply mathematical and statistical methods to assess risk in insurance, finance, and other relations and professions are necessary for being able to pilot students’ extrapolating outcome in a real-life situation. Understanding financial statements and being able to do financial analysis will open the door to entrepreneurship. Reading of chart, graph, computing documents, analyzing business performance, solving problems related to the percentage, ratio, and proportion is some other skills cultivated in math class.

For example, in project-based learning students are assigned to develop a plan for an upcoming housing project in a rural area near a big town. In this situation, students can use the geometry, geography, and statistics class to develop an understanding of the area, its population, character of the land, etc. to determine which shapes are mathematically similar to the house in that environment.

Entrepreneurial skill in science class

The learning activities or tasks are given to students in a well-defined science class are a step to promote the exploration of their inborn talent in solving life problems. Thus, the students are familiar with the use of their own ideas and technologies. It is an essential part of authentic learning for the teacher not to see himself or herself as the sole authority in science class but to coach and scaffold. The teacher should also act as a learner and guide the students where needed and withdraw for the students to learn by themselves. 

Entrepreneurial activities are plenty in project-based learning and experiential learning where students develop the skill in using the interpretation of data, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation to decide to use what they have learned in the new context. It helps them to support another knowledge construction task.  

For example, students design and execute a procedure for testing the qualities of the tap water, they have accurate data, use the information to determine which water filtration would be most appropriate water filtration system, which forces them to look at what they have learned in a new way and deepen their knowledge.

Entrepreneurial skill in social science class

In social sciences, learners explore how societies work, and how they can participate and take action as critical, informed, and responsible citizens. Every successful entrepreneur has learned to develop their perseverance in solving social problems.

Creativity is the ability to see things differently and to provide solutions where there are gaps. History teachers can assign a project to students for creating a tourist website presenting the history, culture, attractions, and accommodations of their local area. Each individual might create a different piece of the overall website, but students need to work together to determine how to organize the information to create the best possible website.

Conclusion

If we empower students with entrepreneurial skills, we open them up to many opportunities, because these are all transferable skills that will be beneficial for them whichever career-path they choose to follow.

A question that all teachers need to answer for them- Do I need to change my approach to teaching for preparing my students for life and to empower them to confront challenging experiences?

Reference

1.       Aina Jacob Kola, Abdulgafar Abdulrahman, Adebayo Azeez, ‘Entrepreneurial Skills in Science through Authentic Learning Strategy: A Panacea for Youth Unemployment in Nigeria,’ ISSN 2664-4002 (Print) & ISSN 2664-6714 (Online)  South Asian Research Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, Volume-1 | Issue-1| Jun-Jul -2019

2.       Avlija?, G., Avlija?, R., & Heleta, M. (2014). Financial literacy as a factor in reducing entrepreneurial risk. 112-114.

3.       Chesbrough, H., & Bogers, M. (2014). Explicating open innovation: Clarifying an emerging paradigm for understanding innovation. In Chesbrough, H., Vanhaverbeke, W., & West, J. (Eds.), New Frontiers in Open Innovation (pp. 3-28). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org.pl/ 10.1093/ acprof:oso/9780199682461.003.0001

4.       Entrepreneurship Skills Acquisition for Economic Development among Secondary School Students in South-South Nigeria - Dr. Nanighe Baldwin Major and Dr. Ibebietei Temple Offor, International Journal of Research Development,( https://globalacademicgroup.com/journals/approaches/Entrepreneurship%20Skills%20Acq.pdf)

5.       Entrepreneurship Education: A Guide for Educators, Entrepreneurship 2020 Unit, Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry, European Commission ,1049 Brussels

6.       * Entrepreneurship360: Guidance note for teachers and School managers (https://www.oecd.org/employment/leed/E360_guidance-note_teachers.pdf)

by-V R JAYAPRASAD JP academia - [email protected]